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Sunday, 28 October 2012

She’s
works down the 24 hour out-of-town massive monstrosity of a supermarket
though really she’s a musician but with all the pubs closing down gigs are
getting hard to find so she does shifts down the supermarket for some extra
cash part time. She spends several hours a day in a blue checked shirt pushing up
and down the aisles a trolley with a computer stuck to it picking shopping for customers who've
ordered their shopping online.

Teresa,
as her name badge reads, was talking to a customer when I saw her last week, about
how their speed was ranked compared to other workers on the same job,
the fastest picker being top of the list. If their speed was too slow a section on their
computer screen would change from green to red.

“The dreaded red, warning you to get
a move on or else!” Teresa said.

“And if your position isn’t near the top it makes you feel a
failure, that you're letting the ‘team’ down. And they tell you off.”

“Poor you having to
work under all that pressure! What ranking are you then?” asked the random customer.

“Third from bottom.”

“Oh.”

“Can’t be arsed with the pressure to compete and be best. It’s
all a psychological game to make us work harder for no extra pay. Stuff that. I
used to think it mattered, but now I know better.”

As she said that I caught a glimpse of a manager glaring at
her from the aisle end.

“Oh there’s the boss, poor him squashed between top management and us lot. He has to try so hard, hype himself
up, it’s like a pantomime.”

With that the lady,
slightly embarrassed at Teresa’s forthrightness moved on and dropped a massive packet
of teabags into her trolley.

Thus
ends the tale of Teresa, employee and exceptional musician whose gig down The Traveller’s
Rest I’m going to this weekend and looking forward to it I am too.

Thursday, 11 October 2012

The
other night I walked to the Traveller’s Rest pub and a biting night it was too.
Frost glistened upon rooftops and the roofs of cars sparkled, it was quite
magical.

All in all I was glad to be within the warmth nestling behind the old oak doors and to be asking for my usual brew, a golden real ale with a packet of salted nuts. And luck was with me as I gained a fireside seat: upon entering the lounge a couple on seeing me swiftly vacated their place which I put down to the damp dog smell of my scraggly mutt.

So
I made myself comfortable and the mutt sniffed around for old crisps on the
floral carpet and I glanced across to the window seat and espied a couple of
blokes chatting.

They were in fact conversing upon the subject of how
to better themselves as they both worked down the local 24 hour supermarket,
one in the warehouse unloading lorries and the other on tills. They debated a
move to Spain to work in better climes abroad in the bars of the Costas. I thus engaged them upon the subject and this story
unfolded as told by the one with stubble and a mobile which regularly shivered
and lit up beside his half drunk pint.

They said a mate of theirs worked for a while on a
farm in Glamorganshire for a couple called Rowli Pugh and Catti Jones who were
known to have bad luck. Their wheat was always patchy, their lambs sickly, their
Landrover kept breaking down and their tractor had permanently unresolved
hydraulic problems. On top of this Catti was depressed and thus rendered
incapable of doing a moment’s work.

One
day Rowli was sat upon the wall of his yard contemplating the drastic step of
selling up in order to improve their lot by emigrating to Spain where property
was cheaper and they could find some work, surely. And all that sunshine! While he was mulling over his woes an old man turned
up, shepherd’s crook in hand, and asked why it was Rowli had such a gloomy
countenance. Rowli was about to pour out his problems when the old bloke piped
up,

“Don’t worry mate, hold yer tongue for I know more
about you than you know and you’re going nowhere, I’ll make sure that your life
becomes one of contentment right here. Tell the missus to leave a candle
burning tonight when she goes to bed and every night henceforth.”

With that the old man or Ellyll as he in fact was,
that is to say Fairy in more modern parlance, upped and offed.

Rowli
turned the conversation over in his mind and concluded that yes, he would tell
his wife Catti Jones that an old man had said she must light a candle each
night before bedtime and their luck’d change. And Catti would probably laugh
her head off at such an idea. But what had they to lose? So that’s the angle he
took and that’s the angle that got Catti to dig out the candles and light one
having put the cat out and brushed her teeth.

And it’s a fact that from the next day onwards their
life did change. When they went down in the morning to put the kettle on for a
cuppa the previous day’s washing up was washed and put away. There was a
freshly baked loaf on the table, croissants and a fat chocolate cake. The dirty
washing was drying on the line clean and crease free and the bathroom was immaculate.
And their home brew was bottled and ready to be enjoyed.

Each night Catti would light a candle before bedtime
and by morning the baking, brewing and washing was all done. Rowli now always
had clean clothes and bed sheets, tasty bread and well brewed beer and it made
him feel like a new man, and he worked like one.

For Catti it was the make-over
she’d always needed and she set up a business from home selling scented candles.
Their farm prospered, the grain grew thick and strong, the pigs were the
fattest at the market and the lambs too. They had a conservatory built and a
gravel drive snaked up to the farmhouse where an eight grand Aga sat in the
kitchen and double glazing kept the Welsh weather out.

Thus their life continued thus for a full three
years until Catti could contain her curiosity no more. When Rowli
was snoring one night she sneaked down the stairs and opened the kitchen door a
crack.

There
she saw the Fairy Folk busily making bread and beer and dancing and laughing as
they did so. Catti was so bemused by the sight she burst out laughing and in an
instant they scattered in a whirl of fairy dust and the kitchen was silent.

Rowli
and Catti’s luck stayed with them however which is often not the case when the Fairy
Folk are spied upon.

The blokes in The Traveller’s Rest confided to me
they were hoping for a similar chain of events by sitting on the car park wall by
their block of flats that night looking miserable as hell in the hope an Ellyll
would appear. Slurring his words the stubbled one said they were off down the
supermarket right now for some candles to light each night they were so desperate
to escape their dead end jobs, overdrafts and singledom.

Though the thought did cross my mind that hanging
around a car park late at night was asking for trouble, not from Otherworldly
Folk but from the police. But I kept my mouth shut. Anyway, all said, good luck to ye lads, I hope the
magic works.

Thursday, 4 October 2012

It’s not just the housework: scrubbing scum from the bath
and scraping food from the sink so the mice don’t get fat, but the whole task
of living that makes her irate. The repetitive letters spewed out by government
computers threatening her with a court case, a fine, imprisonment,
transportation to Tasmania (mmm...maybe not a bad thing) for missing a payment.

Indeed until not that long ago she'd read they transported folk to Van Diemen’s
Land for poaching a rabbit, cutting down a tree without
permission or spending a month in the company of travellers. Beware those of no
fixed abode!

Mind you, thought she, the past was a bloodthirsty place
with twenty thousand day-trippers flocking to public hangings to view in the
flesh (no internet back then) those unfortunate enough to be tagged deviant and hung from the scaffold.

Picture the crowd scoffing their picnics dressed in
their best for this much discussed social event hyped up by cheap pamphlets detailing
the ‘final words’ and grimaces of those lawfully murdered.

And if the powers that be today had their way she’s sure
they’d reintroduce such measures of population control to keep at bay all those
benefit fraudsters and ne’er-do-wells. And media entrepreneurs would publish
blogs detailing the last gurgles of the publically murdered, share
pictures and tags. Oh how the ‘likes’ would multiply and all that revenue from
ads!

Thus is the turn of her mind whilst doing
the washing up. Makes her go Ggggrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!